Queen's Legacy
by Foxipaw
Summary: My fifth attempt...


If the heat was one thing, the crowd was something else entirely. Both pressed in, but it was the crowd that felt dangerous. Men pushed men, women shoved their husbands, mothers cuffed and kicked at their children. I eyed the sun, pleading with it to sink so that I could leave the market behind me. It hovered right above the city wall, just dusting the crenellations, blotting out the men who walked there. When it hit halfway I'd be relieved from my post, and relieved from this bedlam. Let the Night Watch handle this mob-in-waiting.

I heard the roar of a man and then a mighty crash, a woman's shriek and before long the wail of a child. I forced my back to straighten lest my shoulders wilt. From the corner of my eye I saw my sister draw her short sword and begin shoving through the crowd, and I did the same. Seeing our flashing castle steel the working folk parted, although some were so enraptured with the scene that they had to be tugged away. Or in Cedany's case, prodded.

It was a man, a drunk, who'd crashed into a handcart and tossed it's goods onto the packed earth below. He stood swaying over the woman who'd manned it. An empty wicker basket was strapped to her back, and her youngling child had been tossed astray when she'd fallen.

"I think you've had a deal to drink for today, Master Swills," Cedany called out. If she meant to goad him, well fine for her, but it would be Willem and I who would have to pull the man off of her. She was a sweet thing to look at, all blond and freckled, with bright leafy eyes. You'd never know what she could do with that sword if she put her mind to it. To my infinite displeasure those who'd cased our patrols always seemed to seek her out first.

He rounded on us, beady eyes half hidden under a prominent brow. His nose looked to have been broken a time or two. "An' I think you ought to bite your tongue!"

"Not very friendly," I called out, hoping to pull his attention.

When he caught sight of us both he threw his head back and laughed. "An' these two lil' girlsh are supposed to haul _me_ in, eh? I'll take those swords out yer hands and shove right up- oof!"

Willem palmed the dome of the man's skull, grabbed a handful of greasy hair, and tossed him aside. For all that the drunk was large, I'd never seen a man bigger than Willem or his twin brother, Cale. I stepped forward quickly, noting that Willem had not even bothered to draw his sword. When the drunk gathered himself, he let out another roar and turned on Willem with a raised fist. What he got was the flat of my blade right between his pig eyes.

He fell like a sack of wet rags.

I knelt to examine my work, pleased to find that he'd barely been cut at all. Willem took a knee as well and together we searched him for weapons, right there with the whole of the South Wallow Market looking on. I heard Cedany call out, "I don't like you lookers. Next looker I see get's what he got!"

I heard the sound of movement strike up again, and it felt as though the crowd let out one collective breath. Some of the earlier tension seemed to dissipate with that little show, though whether they were scared or simply satisfied was not for me to say.

For all that I could see, the man's only weapon was a tiny little dagger, notched and starting to rust. More interesting was the glass flask tucked into his waistband. It was blue in color, nothing we produced in the city, and embellished with strange runes. Frowning I set it down quickly and rubbed my palm against the cloth of my breeches.

"Since when are you so superstitious, Aranya," Willem quipped in that way of his, half concern but really just trying to needle you.

I only glared.

"Foreign goods ain't going to hurt anybody," he murmured, a bit more serious this time. All the same he tucked the flask away quickly before too many saw it.

But still, _foreign_ trade. It was only the second thing I'd ever seen in my life that wasn't made here in Callais, and the Duke's sword was older than the wars, so it almost didn't count. Two weeks past, Dawn Call had opened the gates and incited panic in all the damned farm hands. There'd been a group _waiting_ there, a number of wagons and a number of people, all smiles and bags of coin and trade goods from somewhere only the gods knew. Some people had fled, some had screamed and cried, and some had tried to drive the newcomers away.

The teachers taught that Callais hadn't had any contact at all with the other cities in over four hundred years. Most thought the other great cities had fallen, as ours nearly did. Some drunkards even went so far as to claim that our city held the last humans, and even though no one could ever say for sure one way or another, I'd always thought that to be unlikely. For every one man that claimed we were nearly extinct, ten more said savage raiders would come down from the mountain clans and steal away unsuspecting farmhands whenever they needed a sacrifice to keep the beasts in line.

Willem hobbled the man, binding his ankles and wrists with cords of braided hide. He would wake up soon, or his brain would fill with blood and he'd die. I hoped he'd live, otherwise our six copper bounty would be cut in half, and that was nearly useless. We might be able to sell his goods for more than that. Cedany grabbed a gutter rat by the shoulder, pressed something into his hand, and turned him towards the main walk which led up to Lord's Hill. Calling for a cart, I'd hope. She made her way back, taking her turn to examine the drunk as well.

The night watch began to trickle in, first one man and then two others from his team. They both looked nervous and I nudged Cedany, nodding their way. "Look how nervous Cherrik and Nath are. Poor lambs, they've never pulled a Night Watch before."

Cedany laughed and rolled her eyes, but didn't get a word in before Willem spoke. "Odd enough we were put to Day Watch. Don't bring any strange luck on us, or something bad is bound to happen. I already don't like it."

I gave him a pointed gaze, one that said something along the lines of 'And you mock me for worrying over that flask?'

My sister scoffed and pouted. "This is why Loriah ought to stay by you, keep you on leash. You get strange notions without her." Her tone was sour. Our team captain was off with Cale and her new lad, training him the same way she'd trained us. I grimaced as well, but Willem would only shrug. He didn't like the boy much either but Loriah said he was with us now and what she said, the twins went with.

"You lot ought to get moving," someone said. I looked up to find Cherrik pushing his way through the crowd. "Duke's calling in a few pairs tonight, and you're on his list. He'll get squirmy if you're late."

Cedany and I shared a glance, and blanched. Had we done something wrong? The Duke wasn't gentle in his chastisements, and worse yet, what if he dismissed us? If Willem was unsettled he didn't show it, but instead crossed his arms and straightened until he towered over the much shorter Cherrik.

"Happens we're waiting for a cart," he groused, nudging the fallen drunkard with the toe of his boot. The man still lay dazed, and I started to truly fear for him. Normally they were at least moaning by now. "Don't trust you lot to turn him in under our name."

Cherrik lay a hand on his sword hilt and flushed, maybe from fear and maybe from anger. He frowned, new lines forming in his jowly cheeks. The man's hair was thinning and he'd gained at least three stone in the three years since my joining. Willem grinned like a wolf and opened his mouth, probably to egg the other man on if I had to bet, but the sound of creaking wheels had our heads popping up like a mischief of rats. The cart had arrived, and Willem pushed bodily past the smaller man, earning a grunt of displeasure but little else.

The driver wore the guard's colors, and he looked at us with dull eyes. His wagon was old and worn, as most of the city guard's equipment was, and creaked when Cedany hopped up into it's bay. The donkey harnessed in seemed to be a placid creature, but Cedany jabbed at my ribs and made a face all the same. I'd never been overly fond of larger animals.

We loaded the drunkard up with a bit of jostling, Willem hoisting his legs and us dragging him by his shoulders. When his head thunked against the wagon's floor he let out a grunt and I smiled. Not dead then, good. The driver let out a sharp whistle and the wagon lurched into motion, jouncing over the cobbles on the main way. Cedany leaned her head in and lowered her voice.

"What do you suppose the Duke wants us for? Or do you think Cherrik was just twisting us?"

Willem grunted and crossed his arms. I saw him suck at the inside of his cheek, then he looked out over the shop fronts we rolled past.

I narrowed my eyes at him. "What?"

He continued to pout.

I sighed and leaned in towards Cedany. "It's either something good or something bad, right? Duke doesn't call teams in for nothing. Either we messed up or we did something good, so what all have we done lately?"

She pursed her lips and thought on it. "Well, there was that tavern fight."

I grimaced. Two weeks past we'd happened upon a tavern fight and set about splitting it up, only we hadn't known one of the Clansmen's sons was involved. I'd ended up breaking his wrist, or something like that, only he'd been too drunk to remember who'd done it and none of my team felt like sending me to be flogged.

"If he'd remembered he would've said something sooner. Besides, with all the damage he did I doubt they'd whip you for it," Cedany assured me.

"Maybe. What about those slavers we rounded up?"

Slaves were everywhere in Callais, but you could only buy or sell a person with the proper papers to say you had the Lord's permission. This didn't stop men from trying to round up and sell off their little ones or the gutter rats skittering through the slums. We'd hobbled half a dozen men in a black market trade doing just that this past month, but that was a while back as far as talks with the Duke went.

I only shrugged. "I don't know. The Duke doesn't really do special rewards, does he? Not unless you stop an assassin or something."

I'd only seen it happen once, and it had been an attempt on Lord Arin's life, so it made sense that the guard who'd fought the Black Hood off would be rewarded. It was too bad he'd been nicked by the poisoned blade and died a week later, but the gesture was kind.

"You two are giving me chills," Willem groused at last, his voice deep and sullen. "You'll sit there in silence until we meet up with Loriah, or I'll set her on you for gossip-mongering."

Cedany huffed and fell back against the wagon wall, crossing her arms and looking up at the sky, which had turned orange and pink and purple since our leave of South Wallows. The first stars began to peek out at us from behind the clouds.


End file.
